


Passing

by seleneheart



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seleneheart/pseuds/seleneheart
Summary: Mathom cannot be the King of An forever, but Rood was the second son





	1. The Passing of the King

A gust of wind from the open window blew in a bedraggled crow, its wings ruffled and wet. Rood raised his head from his grief, staring, unsurprised.

“Raederle?”

The bird looked at him, its clear eyes full of power and then shook itself.

“No. She said goodbye days ago. This moment is for you only.” 

The High One’s eyes were still brimming with power, but they also held vast love and compassion. Rood couldn’t hold that gaze for long and turned back to the bed where his father lay dying.

His voice was bitter, for it had been many years since Morgon had come to him. “Does the High One attend all the passages of the land rule? Or am I special?”

“You have always been special,” Morgon replied. “But I have felt the wraiths, and I know . . . I know how difficult it is . . . to bind them.”

His hand went out, tangling in Rood’s dark hair, twisting and pulling. Rood leaned into the rough caress despite himself, welcoming the pain, cursing that Morgon knew him so well; knew exactly what he needed. The hand withdrew and Morgon stood, leaning over Mathom, touching a gentle hand to the forehead of the King of An.

“It will be soon,” he said, sitting beside Rood, close against him and curling an arm around him. 

Rood wanted to fight against the embrace, to deny both Morgon and himself. He was angry at the High One though, not Morgon. Morgon, he understood, the Star-Bearer with destiny on his face. Rood had always known that Morgon would go away from him.

But the High One could prevent this, could scold Mathom and tell him to rise from the sickbed. But Rood knew without asking that the High One would never interfere with Mathom’s choice.

Finally, he relaxed into the warmth of the man he’d loved since he was barely old enough to understand the meaning of love.

“I’m glad you are here.” 

His voice was soft, but not quite apologetic for his earlier temper. He felt Morgon’s smile against his hair, and all at once he felt the endless capacity that Morgon had for love. Not just as the High One, but as the man who saw all of Rood, his fears, his insecurities, his unreasonable needs, but yet still loved him absolutely.

They sat quietly, together, keeping watch. It happened between one instant and the next. Morgon sucked in a breath, holding it, a moment before Rood felt it. The invisible bond between himself and Mathom, between ruler and heir, was gone.

In its place was whirling chaos, names and faces of kings long dead, barons and petty lords, knights and farmers. The Wraiths of An were freed by Mathom’s death and wailing for vengeance.

Rood fell to the floor, his hands clapped to his ears, screaming as they assailed him.


	2. Passing of the Land Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead kings of An assail the newest King

The wailing increased, the pressure building against his skull, and Rood could not remember ever being in so much pain. The stone floor was hard under his back as he twisted, desperately trying to escape the agony. He lifted his head to thump it harshly on the floor, trying to rid himself of the horrors riding him. New pain raced along his nerves, but it was one that he understood. Weapons clashed and bloodcurdling screams reverberated through his head, battles fought through An’s dim history replaying themselves inside his head.

His voice was failing, the screams making his throat sore.

But then Morgon was there, strong arms around him, pulling him upright into his lap. Rood writhed, trying to escape, but Morgon would not release him.

“Bind them!” Morgon shouted in his ear. Rood was still mindlessly howling, but gradually the voice of the High One penetrated his anguish. “Limit them, put them back in their graves.”

He gasped, and tears streaked Rood’s face as he regained control of himself. “I don’t have your power, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You know them, you’ve been a scholar. You know all of their names, put them where they belong.”

The noise inside his head had not abated and Rood could not concentrate. “I do not know how.”

“You do. Think. Evern the Falconer. Who was he?”

Rood focused on the name, trying to shut out the noise, taking himself back to long ago lessons. “He was . . . a King of Hel. He trained falcons to carry messages in battle.”

“And where is he?”

“Dead, long dead.”

“Where should he be?”

“In his grave.”

“Find him, know him, and then bind him to the soil of An.” 

Morgon’s hands were steady on him, holding him up, keeping him warm. Rood took strength from the contact and reached out with his mind until he saw the King of the Falcons. The dead King fought him, but Rood refused to be dismayed and soon the wraith turned away, subdued.

“Good, now the next one. Kale.”

Kale had won a desperate battle by using the Great Shout, and Rood smiled. His mother had been a descendent of Kale. He found the King and it was easier this time to bend the wraith to his will. The names came faster after that . . . Farr, and Oen, and Nemir, and Ylon, and Peven, and Awn, and Col . . . and the list was vast, but Rood felt his mind expanding, his power growing as his sense of land-law grew. They all acknowledged his mastery, all the dead kings, and all the lords, and all the dead of An were back in the rich soil of the land, subject to the ancient land-law enforced by the High One. 

“Go further,” Morgon whispered in his ear. “All of it now.”

Rood leaned back in Morgon’s arms, sending his mind spiraling outwards, finding the living of An, the nobles of his court, the Lords of Hel and Aum, the farmers sleeping in their cots, the deep oak woods, and the pigs slumbering easily beneath the hoary trees. He wrapped himself around the merchant ships in the harbor at Anuin, rode the winds one the wings of a crow, twined his spirit through the vineyards of Aum.

It seemed an age that he stretched his senses outward, taking in all of the land he would rule. The land-law settled within him, became a part of him and he grasped that it was a living thing and it had claimed him just as he had claimed it.

“Yes,” Morgon murmured.

Rood stirred in the High One’s embrace. “It all leads back to you, doesn’t it? All the extra things I can sense . . . you are the power beneath it all. You make it function.”

“Now you understand me at last. Does that frighten you? Now that you know?”

The new King of An was still brimming with the remnants of his new power, and the scholar that Rood had always been was rejoicing in the breadth of his knowledge. There would be grief later for the loss of his father, but for the moment all Rood felt was elation.

“No. It is a part of you, and I have never feared you.”

Morgon smiled then, his power veiled and he was once again the farmer from Hed. But Rood could feel the High One’s love for his realm, a thread of bright light that trickled through everything that he felt. He was connected to that through the land-law.

They were sprawled on the floor beside the bed. Rood moved to get up, pulling Morgon with him.

“We should tell someone.”

“Yes, there will be plans that must be made.”

Power trembled through Rood’s veins and he was not yet willing to surrender it to the mundane concerns of running the kingdom.

He stepped closer to Morgon, wanting to find someplace to hide them, even as Morgon’s hands settled around his waist.

“Love me,” Rood asked.

“Always,” Morgon replied, tugging him out of the room.


End file.
